The Healing Crisis

As a Reiki practitioner, one of the first things I learned about was the concept of the “healing crisis.” It was explained to me as a situation where someone receiving Reiki (or any other treatment, for that matter) will often get worse before they get better. Since this is a fairly common occurrence, our Master wanted us to be aware of it so that we would know how to deal with it when it happened with one of our clients.

I had noticed this phenomenon occurring in my own life when I had contracted an illness of some kind and sought treatment for it. It seemed to me the longer the illness lasted, the more likely a healing crisis was to occur. At least that has been my experience with my own illnesses over the years.

So, I had experience with the healing crisis, but had never heard a name put to it until my Reiki I class. I still didn’t know what caused a healing crisis, but I now knew it was a known phenomenon and actually had a name!

I was listening to an Abraham-Hicks CD recently and it occurred to me that a healing crisis is a wonderful illustration of how our vibrational gap affects our physical being. Illness is an indicator that our gap is widening, i.e. our physical being is resisting its natural well being. The more resistance we have, the wider our gap and the more severe the illness.

If you picture your physical being on the left and your Inner Being on the right, the distance between them is your vibrational gap. Your Inner Being is constantly calling you toward it, sort of like a magnet calls metal to it. The difference is that the further away you get from your Inner Being, the stronger the pull is and the worse you feel. That’s how you know your moving in the opposite direction from your Inner Being, but the fact that you don’t feel good!

If you’ve been sick a while, you’ve gotten somewhat used to not feeling good and your gap has probably settled at a certain distance so that you’re accustomed to the pull being exerted by your Inner Being. When healing is offered, whether it be energetic like Reiki or allopathic in the form of drugs, it typically provides some hope to your ailing physical being. This hope causes the calling of your Inner Being toward well being to get stronger.

Unless you are completely aligned with the treatment and less resistant as a result, it’s not likely your physical being will turn immediately and move toward well being. Therefore, the stronger pull against the “normal” resistance you’re used to makes you feel worse. As you maintain your feeling of hope, or knowing that the treatment will be effective, your resistance subsides and you begin to move toward the calling of your Inner Being. In other words, you become less resistant to your natural well being and you “get better.”

Vibrational alignment with your Inner Being and the subsequent absence of resistance to your natural well being is what always causes your illness to be healed. This is why different treatments work for different people. The treatment has to be something the patient can align with, i.e. believe in. The stronger that belief, the more effective the treatment will be. If the patient can reach that alignment immediately upon receipt of the treatment, no healing crisis can occur because there is no fluctuation in their vibrational gap. That’s the exception rather than the rule which is why the healing crisis is fairly common.

John Sawyer

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Healers Can’t Care

“Nothing is more debilitating than to care about something you can’t do anything about.” — Abraham

One of the most important things I’ve had to learn as a healer is to detach myself emotionally from my clients’ healing or lack thereof. I think all healers start out with the idea that they can cause another to heal and if the other doesn’t heal, there must have been something wrong with the healing technique, or the application thereof, or that the practitioner is inadequate in some way.

Those beliefs place the responsibility for the client’s healing everywhere but the one place it belongs…with the client. Have you ever wondered why a given treatment for a particular condition works for some people and not for others? The obvious answer is that the ones who healed were ready to heal. Those who did not heal were not in a vibrational state that allowed their healing.

We in the West are raised to believe that medicine is something to be applied to our condition to cause us to heal. By extension, the same mindset is applied to alternative modalities. Healers, whether traditional Western practitioners or alternative practitioners, hold themselves responsible for their clients’ healing.

There’s a reason why they don’t let surgeons operate on family members – they care too much! The responsibility for a positive outcome is so great that the likelihood of error goes up considerably.

I often tell my Reiki students that the most difficult part of Reiki is getting out of the way. What that means is that Reiki cannot be forced. Trying to force it will only pinch off the flow of energy. The “trick”, so to speak, is to be an open channel and allow Reiki to flow freely. One can’t do that if they’re emotionally invested in the outcome.

To be truly effective as a healer, one must trust the modality completely. If the practitioner trusts their method implicitly, this offers a vibration of confidence and well being to the client. This is the single most important thing any healer can do for her client. People heal because they are a vibrational match to their own well being. It is much easier to come into that alignment if the healer is aligned first.

I have learned to trust completely in Reiki and the Universe to deliver to the client exactly what they need in exactly the right amount. I understand that what the client wants and what they need may be two very different things and I further understand that the ultimate decision to heal belongs with the client.

The best I can do is offer Reiki and hold my client in a vibration of well being. After that, they’re on their own. In other words, while I can influence them, I have no direct control over them. That knowing frees me from the burden of their healing (or not) and allows me to flow Reiki the best way I can.

Obviously, I wish for my clients the most positive of outcomes, but I understand that I can’t see the big picture of what is in their highest good. That’s between them and their Inner Being. I simply have to trust that whatever the outcome, it is in their best interest.

If I allow myself to be drawn into judging their outcome, I reduce my effectiveness as a healer and facilitator of their well being. As Abraham puts it, my work is to feel good because if I don’t feel good, I have nothing to offer anyone anyway.

John Sawyer

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